


The Curse of Broken Glass (Whumptober 2020 Day 2)

by Jadelyn



Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Choose Who Dies, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Multi, Whumptober 2020, from yesterday's whump w happy ending to this...and i'm not even sorry, look. you can't call it whumptober and not expect it to hurt okay., no beta we die. not like anyone in particular. we just die.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadelyn/pseuds/Jadelyn
Summary: While exploring a cursed castle, Geralt, Jaskier, and Yennefer walk into a trap.  With the poison smoke quickly taking effect, who gets the single dose of antidote the room contains?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953790
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61





	The Curse of Broken Glass (Whumptober 2020 Day 2)

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: No 2. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY   
> "Pick Who Dies" | Collars | Kidnapped

"They say the cursed castle lures its victims in with their fondest dreams and breaks them apart using their worst nightmares," the villagers whisper. "They say no one who has entered has ever left it again. They say it destroys them all."

* * *

_Fucking mages._

Ordinarily Geralt would follow up that thought with something about _'present company excepted'_ , mostly because he meant it but also because he didn't want Yen pissed at him if she happened to be eavesdropping the way she often did.

But at the moment, he was very much inclined to include said present company, and on that note, fuck bards, too. He had _told_ them both to stay behind - which, in retrospect, had been a serious tactical error. Neither of his lovers was the type to take kindly to being told to stay out of something.

But Yen had pointed out that this was more curse-breaking than monster-fighting, and having magic on his side as well could be useful. Jaskier had already been gazing into space with eyes half-glazed as he considered the dramatic potential of a cursed castle. And then they'd both pointed out that they were perfectly capable of finding the damn castle by themselves even if he tried to go without them, so wouldn't it make more sense to go together so that he could at least try to protect them if anything happened?

Geralt could win this argument maybe two times out of three with Jaskier, perhaps half the time with Yen. But the both of them together? He hadn't stood a chance.

All right, so it might have been petty of him, in the instant of shock after the door had slammed shut and trapped them in the near-empty room, to have wasted a precious second to glare at the both of them and say, "And _this_ is why I told you to stay behind."

But Geralt was all right with that. He'd never claimed to be above such pettiness.

Yen and Jaskier had both been drawing breath for a pair of what would no doubt have been equally cutting replies when the smoke started to pour in. Sickly yellow-green and almost glowing with its own light, it was billowing up from half a dozen grates in the floor around the perimeter of the room.

Instinctively all three of them drew in together toward the center of the room, clustering around the stone plinth that was the only thing in the room aside from themselves and buying an extra second or two before the smoke reached them. Yen's hands came up, chaos flickering around her fingers for a moment as she began to push the smoke back and erect a barrier to protect them from it.

But a heartbeat later her chaos sizzled sharply and she cried out, stumbling into Jaskier. He took her slight weight easily enough, holding her upright with an arm around her waist.

"Yen?" Two voices shared the word, one melodic and the other rough but with the same concern in both.

She shook her head. "My magic," she gasped. "I think…dimeritium. In the smoke."

"Fuck."

Jaskier snapped his head up to look at Geralt over Yen's head. "Your Signs. The shield one - would that -"

Geralt was already shaking his head. "Quen doesn't keep gases out, and if there's enough dimeritium to stop Yen's magic my Signs won't work either." He didn't wait for a reply before continuing. "Look around, see if you can spot any way to block the grates or open the door or anything else." Taking a deep breath of mostly-still-clean air, Geralt stepped into the rising smoke to go back and investigate the door.

Unfortunately this trap was well-wrought. The door was heavy stone with no handle, polished to glassy smoothness, and fitted so perfectly against the floor that even a dagger blade couldn't slip in to help make room for prying fingertips to get a grip on it. The dimeritium meant he couldn't blast it with aard, either. Unless they found a secret switch, there was no getting out this way.

A choked gasp from behind him dragged his attention away from the door. He spun back to see Yen doubled over with dimeritium-sickness, which put her face-first into the rising smoke. Jaskier leaned over her, no doubt intending to lift her up out of it, but got a lungful as well and started coughing.

Geralt was there an instant later, arms around both of them. Jaskier thrust Yen at him and hissed, "Up!" As Geralt lifted Yen, Jaskier staggered back, hip colliding with the plinth.

The bard twisted at the waist and grabbed at it to stabilize himself, then gasped. "Geralt," he said, "Yen - look." There was a taut, strained urgency in Jaskier's voice.

Following Jaskier's gaze, Geralt looked down at the top of the plinth, upon which were a single potion vial full of a milky white liquid and an inscription in the stone. In Elder script it read:

_One dose, one life._  
_Who lives, and who dies?_  
_The choice is yours._

"What the _fuck_." The snarl was so guttural that it hurt Geralt's throat as it left him. "What kind of sick, twisted -"

"Doesn't matter," Yen whispered, craning her neck to see past Geralt's arm and read it. "Survive first, tear the sick fuck to pieces later."

There was enough smoke in the chamber now that they couldn't avoid inhaling it with each breath. Yen's warm brown skin was ashen-grey, her violet eyes starting to go hazy and unfocused. Jaskier was tearing at the neck of his shirt as though he couldn't breathe, and a trickle of blood made its way down from the corner of his mouth as Geralt watched in horror.

For his own part, though, he felt little. His throat felt a bit raw, but no worse than the lightly abraded feeling you might get after yelling too loud. His lungs still drew air with ease, he still stood strong without wavering.

"Whatever this stuff is," Geralt said, a sick unease settling in the pit of his stomach, "it doesn't seem to be hurting me. Its creator must not have accounted for witcher physiology."

"Which means," Jaskier rasped, voice wrecked enough to sound like a slightly higher-pitched version of Geralt's, "at least only one of us has to die, instead of two."

"What?" Geralt shook his head violently. "No! We'll find another way. We'll get out of here, all of us. Maybe if you each take half -"

Yen broke in. "One dose…the whole point is forcing us to choose."

Jaskier nodded. "She's right, Geralt," he said. "Doubt it would work if you only take half."

"Hah," Yen said, lifting an arm with clear effort and prodding Jaskier's chest with one immaculately manicured nail. "You…agree with me."

Jaskier swatted her hand away, very gently, then caught it and brought it to his lips. "Don't let it go to your head, you…mad witch," he said. Tears spilled from his crystal-blue eyes as he dropped her hand, snatched up the vial in uncoordinated fingers, unstoppered it and thrust it at her. "Here. Drink."

"No," Yen said, pushing his hand away. "You."

"Yen," Jaskier said, voice achingly tender, "I'm only…a man. Mortal. Got a couple decades left in me. Then I'm gone too." He clutched the plinth, let it keep him upright, his other hand still holding out the antidote for Yen to take. "He's got centuries left. So've you. Will…need you. Each other. Take it."

"No," she snapped, dredging up enough strength to put bite in her voice. "You've seen…us. Without you. Doesn't work. Need you. I can't…be there for him, not like you can. He'll need you."

Geralt watched helplessly as the only two people he'd ever let himself love argued over which of them should live and which should die, even as they _both_ grew weaker. Over which of them he would need more, after the other died. _I need you **both** ,_ he wanted to say, but the horror of the situation held his voice captive and all he could do was stand mutely and watch them fight it out, about as useful to them as the stone walls around them.

It was the sound of his name that yanked him back from the almost trancelike state he'd fallen into.

"Geralt, tell her! It doesn't -"

"Geralt, tell him! I'm not -"

Their voices rang out simultaneously. Yen gestured at Jaskier. Jaskier gestured at Yen. Both of them moved awkwardly, made slow and uncoordinated by the poison they'd inhaled. Their hands collided.

His hands, preternaturally strong and fast as they were, were useless captives under the weight of Yen's body where he cradled her against his chest.

The vial shattered on the stones, scattering hopes and dreams and love in glittering shards of broken glass at their feet.

\---

The cursed castle lured in its victims with promises of success, and magic, and story.

It broke them apart with an impossible choice between one life and another, one love and another.

No one who entered ever left again.

It destroyed them all.


End file.
